I WANNA Be a Quitter!!!

Quit Day: February 14, 2013 Current smoke rate: 10-12 cigarettes/day Triggers: Standing at the bus stop Work breaks Watching TV at home Consuming alcohol After a meal End of the workday Around other smokers Seeing someone smoking (on TV/in films) Reasons to quit: Besides all the obvious health reasons, I don't want to be a smoker anymore. It’s a gross, unattractive habit that costs way too much and has NO known benefits. Also, I miss my pearly whites. Concerns about quitting: Temptation (Practically, all of my friends smoke…not that I hang out with people much anyways, but when I do I might feel left out of ducking out for a cigarette or embittered about being the one who has to watch everyone’s drinks. I am only a little concerned about this, mostly because as mentioned I don’t hang much and also because I really don’t like smoking all that much. I’ve always thought it was disgusting and if I’m not smoking, I REALLY hate the smell of secondhand smoke. Even sometimes when I AM smoking I hate the smell of other people’s smoke. I should be alright if I am not trapped in a room with a bunch of people having heaters…so no game nights for a while.) Weight gain (Through no actual effort on my part, I’ve managed to lose about 17 pounds recently. I guess I kinda noticed I was losing weight a few months ago when I started vaguely comfortably fitting into some of my old jeans. I didn’t really realize how much weight until several people pointed it out to me upon my return to Records. It suddenly dawned on me that I was actually quite comfortably fitting those old jeans. Heck, I tried on a pair the other day that were feeling a tad baggy. Last night I weighed myself for the first time in…a while and I am down almost 20 pounds from my last weigh-in. I have no idea how this happened, especially since I think I have a terrible diet and I didn’t walk home from Midtown quite as often as I had hoped to when I went to work there AND when I do walk, I don’t keep as brisk a pace as I did in my youth. All that to say, I would love to keep the weight I’ve lost off and possibly, lose a few pounds more. However, I appreciate that this 17 pounds gives me a little bit of a cushion since smoking cessation tends to result in some weight gain.) Fear of Failure (I don’t want this terrible habit to beat me. I may be putting a lot on my plate. In addition to attempting to maintain my mystery weight loss, I have recently also decided to quit biting my nails and to back up off the caffeine a bit. These were not as thought out as my Quit Smoking plan. I just got a full set manicure 3 weeks ago, chewed the falsies off this weekend and painted my nubs with a nail grow polish. Now I’m hoping for the best. The caffeine thing is still a work in progress. All-in-all, if I had to choose two of these things to actually accomplish, I would go with quitting smoking and nail biting. Those are the most unhealthy and unattractive things. Seriously, I have caught a glimpse of my reflection when I was gnawing on a nail and it is NOT HOT. Ditto, sucking on a cigarette.) Perhaps the main pull from all this is that I want to be healthier and I am dipping my toes into the waters of developing a healthier lifestyle. I still have beaucoup work to do because as I stated above, I eat for crap and the only exercise I currently get is walking home from work. (I have been good about taking the Skyway home from my first bus stop in a Minneapolis when not working at Job #2 and I do walk home from Job #2 at least twice a week. That’s about 20 minutes of walking per day. Not too shabby.) Perhaps I will look into gussying up that sad bicycle of mine (or more likely, looking for a cheap, sturdy replacement). I plan to quit smoking cold-turkey. No gum, no patches. I did consider reupping my Wellbutiron Rx, however, I don't need it for my moods(thankfully) and I don't really want it for smoking cessation. I will slowly whittle down my daily cigarette consumption until February 14, then I'm done. That's how I quite last time. I lasted 7 months then and only really started again when I got hired at a crappy, stressful job. Since I just LEFT a crappy, stressful work situation, I hope I don't get any new stresses that my get in my way. Remember how I used to not even smoke during a workday? Yeah, that stopped sometime before I left Records the first time. I REFUSE to bring cigarettes to work with me anymore...starting today. So far, I'm doing okay. Every so often, I will get this craving, but then it just goes away. I've been really snacky, but I'm always snacky which brings us back to that weight gain concern. I plan to incorporate healthy snacks into my world. I've needed to do this for a long time anyway. Maybe the fact that I couldn't just waltz over to a convenience store and buy Little Debbies whenever I wanted at Midtown contributed to my little sveltening. I do miss being able to saunter upstairs and buy a tasty apple whenever I want, though. So I will buy apples and cheese and pretzels and popcorn and baby carrots and snap peas and broccoli florets and (fat-free?...maybe not) ranch dressing (for dipping) and bring those things to work to lessen my Little Debbie intake. I need to cook hella more than I do. Okay, confession: maaaaaaybe my weight loss is because I just DO NOT COOK ANYMORE. Not, like, NEVER, but like not NEARLY as often as even I used to and I have never been that big on cooking for myself. Lately, I will just not eat if I don't have a pizza or a bowl of noodles to make (and/or I haven't stopped to pick something up because that's a thing I do like I can afford to just dine out everyday which I really can't. We'll discuss my need for a healthy budget journey in the diary). This started out as an attempt to hash out my reasons and plan for quitting and turned into all THIS. But I ain't mad about it. I have been slacking on the blogging anyway. Perhaps I will try to track my progress on all of my various projects (and any others I might add) on a more regular basis. Lates! P.S. I apologize if this looks like one, giant run-on paragraph from hell, but well, Blogger sucks like that. (*shoulder shrug*)